


I Would Like To Give You the Silver Branch

by xenokattz



Category: Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: F/M, I'm making it a thing, Lois & Clark can't keep their hands to themselves, is that a thing?, semi-linear narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 06:45:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenokattz/pseuds/xenokattz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark smiled at the Chinese take-out on the table. "I can't stay long."<br/>"Stay long enough to eat."<br/>He turned his head to the bathroom, questioning.<br/>Lois put her fists to her waist. "You think I'm going to share the last Tropical Sunrise bath bomb with you?"<br/>"My mistake. And the wine?"<br/>"That's so we can get drunk and make-out."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Margaret Atwood's "[Variation on the Word Sleep](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16221)."

_Then_

Lois' allergies smacked her sinuses as soon as her rental whipped past Smallville's welcome sign (Creamed Corn Capital of the World!). She eased up on the gas just long enough to swallow an antihistamine with the tepid dregs of coffee she got from a gas station fifty miles back. The little car icon on her GPS had a question mark above it as it "drove" through an apparently endless rectangle of green while the Trans-Atlantic robot voice reciting the audio directions repeated "Recalculating" with slow, depressed, weary tones of the condemned. It had been saying "Recalculating" for the past five minutes. Lois seriously considered putting it out of its misery but apparently the Planet's travel budget didn't cover stilettos rammed into car electronics. Damn austerity measures.

She hit downtown Smallville after another seventeen minutes of corn. The GPS had, with a staticky beep of joy, flashed the main street's name-- Main Street-- then lost its digital mind again when Lois breezed through the box stores and franchised restaurants of modern Americana. More corn whipped past the car. So much corn. Her sinuses might never recover from the corn.

 The Kent homestead was the first left 'round the corner from Milly's Goat Cheese (est. 1998) sign then three miles past the burnt oak, according to the woman Lois flagged down because the GPS had let out a wibble and died. Her rental scuffed dust clouds, getting larger and thicker as she neared the honest-to-shit little white house on a hill. It had a porch, a rose garden, a wooden swing on a sycamore, and a windmill a quarter mile back. Lois couldn't make up something this all-American if she rooted through the Daily Planet's photo archives circa 1930.

 Lois got out, straightening her shirt as she made her way to the front door. The place needed a lot of work: chipped paint, wobbly floor boards, and somewhere on the property, there was a squeaky weather vane. Lois wondered if she should get her pistol out of the glove compartment in case Mrs Martha Kent greeted her with a shotgun.

 She knocked.

 A middle-aged lady and her dog-- a Border collie cross by the looks of him-- answered although she didn't open the screen door. "Yes?"

 "Mrs Kent?"

 The lady raised her eyebrows. She tightened her hold on the dog.

 "I'm Lois Lane from the Daily Planet, and I'd like to talk to you about your son."

 Kent's knuckles went white on the dog's collar. "Are you sure you have the right house?"

 "You're Martha Kent, right? With a son, Clark Kent--" Lois held up the clearest photo she had of "Joe" from the Yukon expedition AKA   "Jerry" from the diner-- "six-foot-two, black hair, blue eyes, and according to these adoption records, his birth date is June eighteenth--"

 "Why are you interested in Clark, Miss Lane?" Kent asked. Lois heard the difference between "miss" and "mizz" which on any other person she'd take to imply that she, Lois, was young and green and therefore unworthy of her journalistic prowess but coming from Suzy Q Homemaker, it didn't quite seem right.

 "Can I come in?"

 "How I about I come out? Sit, Shelby." She disappeared into the house only to reappear in five minutes with a pitcher of lemonade and two tall glasses. "It gets pretty humid in the house this time of the year, Miss Lane. The porch is more comfortable for company."

 Shelby nosed the door open to lie at Martha's side. The dog kept both eyes steady on Lois. Smart dog.

 "Where's Clark now?"

* * *

  _Now_

 Right now, Clark would give anything to have a greater working knowledge of structural engineering. The voices of the people trapped under this building decreased, out of exhaustion or oxygen deprivation, not death but in a few more hours...

 "We've found the best way to do this," said the soldier working closest with him. A Master Sergeant according to his shoulder badge with "Stewart" stitched across his right chest.

 Clark nodded for him to continue.

 "The critical point, according to what you saw with your... uh... enhanced vision is that corner where three of the slabs are lying on these steel frames." Stewart sketched a diagram as he spoke. "This section is the heaviest and will need to be moved before the frame gives but it's balancing three smaller slabs up."

 "What if I tip this edge up and east," said Clark, "taking the weight off the steel girders?"

 "We'd have to put something along this edge, along the west to shelter the people from heavy debris."

 "I can hold the slab up for as long as you need to do that."

 "Good. At the very least, they'll be protected from the worst of the fallout."

 If need be, Clark would cover all twenty of those trapped people with his own body. The steel sheets the army provided had enough flex to curve over them now that they were huddled close and he could use his heat vision to spot-weld some rebar at strategic angles. He hoped.

 While the specialists secured girders and jacks on critical points of the wreckage, Clark flew in and out of the city, helping out in small ways: crushing the gun of a looter threatening a convenience store, freeing a woman trapped under her car, flying a boy to a hospital with a still-working generator to power his heart-and-lung machine. By the time he returned, Stewart gave him the okay.

 He had to wiggle into a very narrow opening. Clark unlatched his cape; it would only get in the way. As he splayed on his belly in front of the hole, he said, "I'm coming down. Please stay in place until a member of the military forces helps you out."

 "What's going to happen?" one of the trapped demanded.

 "Please, get us out!" sobbed another.

 "Who is that?" asked a third.

 "I'm a friend," said Clark. He slipped in, braced concrete and steel on his back and straightened his knees. Metal and cement groaned. Several of the trapped people let out screams but Stewart's men moved quickly. Within fifteen minutes, all twenty were above ground. No other heartbeats thumped under this building. He headed for another disaster zone--

 "Clark."

 He wished he could call her.

 "Clark, come on."

 At least five other buildings in New Troy alone reported trapped people and the military needed him to--

 "Clark Joseph Kent, get your ass to my hotel room now or I'm calling your mother."

 Clark veered towards Lois.


	2. Chapter 2

_Then_

 Lois Lane didn't go away but then, Clark hadn't expected her to just give a story up. She  _was_ one of the few contemporary journalists recognizable by name. She showed up on his mom's porch in the middle of supper with a greasy take-out bag.

 "I heard around town that Martha Kent makes the best pies in the county so I couldn't get dessert and Clark Kent is practically a vegetarian so I couldn't grab a pepperoni pizza. I figured 'fries.' Everyone likes wedge fries."

 Although Clark had told his mother that Lois was a friend, he held his hand out for Martha to stay seated as he made his way to the screen door. "Lois." He deliberately pulled every syllable of her name out as both a warning and a sigh.

 "Clark."

 "I'm still not going to agree to an interview. I'm very grateful for your discretion, Ms Lane. I really am. I'm sorry you travelled all this way for nothing." Then he had to add, "Thank you very much for the fries."

 "Thirty minutes. I'll wait until you finish eating." Lois shook the take-out bag.

 Clark turned to look over his shoulder at his mother. She pressed her lips together into a half-smile and glanced at the over-filled platters on the table. He dipped his chin down before opening the screen door. "Please come in and join us for dinner."

 "Really, I can wait outside. It's kinda nice out."

 "We don't let anyone sit out for dinner around here. But I'm sure you know that."

 She grinned, but didn't answer as she made her way indoors. "Good evening, Mrs Kent."

 "Good evening, Ms Lane. Thank you for joining us."

 Few people understood his mom's dry sense of humour but one corner of Lois' grin curled up even further. "Thank you very much. I hope the fries go with your, uh--"

 "Tagine with tempeh and lentils," said Martha.

 "Now with its traditional side dish of wedge fries," Clark said. He slid the serving bowl to her side of the table.

 He expected her to push. He expected rapid-fire questions and pointed digging. Instead Lois Lane only complimented his mom on her cooking and set about to demolishing everything on her plate in about thirty seconds flat. Including the wedge fries. His mom doled a generous helping of seconds out to her and she vacuumed that up as well.

 "And here I thought Clark had no competition when it came to his appetite," said Martha.

 Lois talked around the remains of her mouthful. "I miss meals when I'm on the job. When I can actually sit down to eat, I try to make up for it."

 "That's not very healthy."

 "I don't really have a choice. It's hard to grab a sandwich when you need both hands to hold the camera and-or write notes. This is really delicious."

 "You should take your fries back to your room so you have something to snack on," said Martha. "I think I still have some apple chips around here from last fall that you can bring as well."

 "What if I want the rest of the fries?" Clark asked.

 Martha gave him a look that said, "I raised you to be a gentleman and to be generous to your guests." Clark then realised Lois strategy: instead of wearing them down with an interrogation, she wormed her way in through his mother's warm heart. Smart. Martha Kent always did have a thing for strays. Clark scraped the serving bowl for the last of the tagine and left all but one wedge fry on the plate. Lois snatched that last fry and chomped in in half.

 Shaking her head with a murmured, "Kids," Martha returned to her meal with pointed tidiness.

 "I'll do the dishes, Mrs Kent," said Lois. "Cooks should never do the dishes."

 "Thanks for the offer." Clark kicked his chair back and stretched his hands behind his head. "I'll catch up on my reading while you do that."

 " _You_ cooked  _that_?"

 He nodded.

 She muttered, "Figures." But she stood by her word and started to take the plates.

 His mom gave Clark another look, this one translating to "See to our guest" as well as "Are you certain you want her to stay here longer?"

 He took the spot to Lois' right, snagging the dishcloth hanging from one of the cabinets. "I'll dry."

 "You cooked," Lois pointed out.

 "So did you. Well, you brought the wedge fries."

 "Ha! I knew they were irresistible." She bumped his thigh with her hip.

 Clark's breath caught. Aside from his parents, he wasn't used to casual touches. Even people who knew--Pete and Lana, his friends-- had been an undercurrent of tentativeness in their contact ever since the school bus incident. They weren't mean. Never mean. Just... they just...

 They never teased him. 

* * *

_Now_

 Lois rarely found herself in a traditional caregiver role so she blamed an undiagnosed head injury for the Chinese take-out staining her hotel room's table, the wine in the fridge, and the hot bath bubbling in the tiny ensuite. She hoped Clark didn't mind smelling like orange zest and rosewood oil.

 Someone knocked.

 "Who is it?"

 "It's me, Lois."

 Lois' palms sweat every time a key piece of evidence for a story fell into her hands. She wiped her hands on her jeans because Clark wasn't a story. He was... Clark was...

 "Lois?"

 She shook herself out of her verbal torpor to open the door. Clark waited in the hallway, his head dipped down so the bill of his cap covered his face. That gorgeous, gorgeous face with the cheekbones and the eyes that left Lois wanting throw every writing rule out the door to find an appropriate adjective. Intelligent life was out there and they created a perfect man.

 She waved him in. "You're appropriately dusty, Drywall Dave."

 He patted down his coveralls. "There's no escaping dirt around here. Luckily, it's been a wet summer so far or the smog would be terrible."

 "There's fewer accidental fires than FEMA predicted although I'm not sure we should chalk that up to the weather," said Lois, closing the door behind him.

 He raised his head-- hallelujah, welcome back, gorgeous, with the cupid-bow mouth and the lower lip that just begged to be nibbled on. And of _course_ he had a dimple on his chin. Lois silently shook her fist at Jor-el and Lara for their ridiculous genes. This was playing with a stacked deck. She had journalistic integrity, yes, but she was also a woman in her thirties with all the appropriate increases in libido. She'd chosen poorly with her last fling. She should have known better than to pick someone up in Monaco, playground of the entitled.

 Clark smiled at the Chinese take-out on the table. "I can't stay long."

 "Stay long enough to eat."

 He turned his head to the bathroom, questioning.

 Lois put her fists to her waist. "You think I'm going to share the last Tropical Sunrise bath bomb with you?"

 "My mistake. And the wine?"

 "That's so we can get drunk and make-out."

 Lois had to smile when Clark's eyes crossed.


	3. Chapter 3

_Then_

His mother stood, pressed a kiss to the top of his head, and announced, "I need to see to the chickens."

 "I can do that," said Clark.

 Martha lifted her chin to Lois, who stood beside him scrubbing an especially stubborn bit of food from a serving spoon. He nodded.

 "Go rest, Ma."

 "Make sure Ms Lane gets back to Nell's safely."

 "I will."

 He waited until Martha did, in fact, climb the stairs to the bedrooms as he collected the rest of the tableware.

 "How long are you staying in Smallville?" he asked Lois.

 "I've got to be back in Metropolis by Thursday."

 The day after tomorrow. Clark accepted a now-clean plate from Lois into his dishtowel.

 "I'm guessing your mom knows where I'm staying 'cause Potter's B&B is the only place that rents rooms in the area," said Lois.

 "There's a Super 8 on the interstate towards Topeka."

 "I know. That marked the last time my GPS was sound of mind."

 "I guess we're a little too small for those to work."

 "With a town this size, I'm surprised no one else knows the truth."

 Clark shrugged. "I kept a low profile."

 Both of Lois' eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline but she didn't deign to comment.

 "Thank you, by the way," he said.

 "I told you-- where I come from, the cook never cleans."

 "Not that. Well, not only that." He accepted a half-rinsed serving plate from her. "I meant for agreeing to keep my story secret."

 "Yeah, well." She shrugged. "Journalism isn't just about writing news. It's also knowing when to kill a story and when to protect your sources."

 "You're... protecting me?"

 Lois grinned up at him and winked. "Sweet little thing like you? Someone needs to." She handed him the last bowl, dripping suds and squeaking with cleanliness. Either he mistimed his grasp or she mistimed her hold; the bowl slipped. Their hands clasped over the rim.

 Growing up, Clark had to adjust to senses no one else in the world seemed to have. Blocking out the sound of earthworms burrowing under the storm cellar. Drinking in enough sunlight when heat came out of his eyes. Holding hammers with a light touch even though they felt as substantial as hay. He'd never experienced what he did now, holding Lois Lane's hand, and for a moment, the rarely-forgotten panic of his school years returned, the one that erupted every time he came face-to-face with his freakishness. His gifts, as his parents called them.

 Lois' fingers were long and thin with coarse knuckles and chipped nail polish. She had fractured her middle and ring finger a long time ago; the scar, barely noticeable, traced over one of her veins. A callus hardened the one side of her index finger. The sudsy wash water barely warmed her wrists. Soap clung to the lightest dusting of blonde hairs over the back of her hand. He could spend forever holding her.

 "Sorry," said Lois. She uncurled her fingers and washed forks.

 Clark could only blink. His entire world had shifted on its axis and she was washing forks. 

* * *

_Now_

 They ate lunch in the bathroom ostensibly for efficiency's sake. Lois sat on the toilet with the lemon almond chicken poured over crispy sesame chow mein. Clark ate Buddha vegetables and mapo tofu over house special fried rice as he soaked in the tub. The wine, uncorked, stood between them, dripping condensation on the floor. He was hopeless with chopsticks.

 "Okay, no, hold the bottom one still and the top one like a pencil." Lois demonstrated.

 Clark squinted, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. "We should ask room service for forks."

 "Advanced civilisation with space travel and no cancer, but the man's hopeless with eating utensils."

 "I'm fine with eating utensils, just not chopsticks," said Clark. "They're too narrow." He splayed thick, blunt-tipped fingers with large knuckles and not a single hint of a scar. Lois knew from experience that his skin was softer than silk or cashmere, and warm like a perfect cup of tea in the fall.

"You can use the coffee teaspoons in the mini bar," she said. "Or..."

 She caught a broccoli floret between her chopsticks and lifted it from Clark's bowl to his lips. He opened his mouth and she popped it in. A bit of juice trickled down his chin. Lois had to kill the urge to lick it off. She'd only been joking about making out.

 Well, half-joking.

 Mostly hoping, really.

 "Lois." He curled a lock of her hair around his fingers, his knuckles brushing her jawline.

 "Do they really need you right now?"

 He smiled though it didn't reach his eyes and nodded.

 "No time even for one kiss?" She bent over him, close enough to feel the heat of his breath on her neck as orange and rosewood steam made her cheeks heat. Or maybe Lois's cheeks went rosy because of the way Clark looked at her, like she was water, salvation, and chocolate wrapped up in diamonds.

 He tilted his chin up. She leaned down further.

 "I guess that's for the best," said Lois. "If I kiss you, I won't want to stop at just kissing."

 Clark's nostrils flared. He let his carton of food slide to the floor as he gripped the sides of the tub. His eyes fluttered half-closed, giving Lois reason to curse his biological parents once again for the perfection of Clark's lashes, so long and thick they nearly touched his cheekbones. His Adam's apple bobbed and he licked his lips. God, he had scrumptious lips.

 "If I kiss you, I won't want to stop at just kissing your mouth." She touched a finger to his collarbones. Trailed it down to one of his nipples, her nails skritching against the hairs on his chest. Traced the line of his pectorals from sternum to deltoid and watched as the water rippled south of his abdominals.

 "If I kiss you..." She breathed into his mouth and he took it in. A droplet shivered at his jawline, where his neck joined his chin. She caught it with lips and tongue to find out if it was sweat or bathwater. The droplet tasted citrusy; his skin tasted like ozone. His breaths heaved under her chest and heated her cheek. Another drop of water rolled down within her field of view. She tasted that, too, and felt her way down the trail of hair on his chest to see exactly how much like humans kryptonians could be.

  _Very_ human, it turned out. Extraordinarily human. Nothing padding that supersuit.

  _Hope suit_ , Lois' ever-ticking journalistic brain corrected.

  _Shut up, it's sexy times now_ , countered Lois' ovaries.

 "Lois," Clark whispered. His hands were at her waist, under her shirt, slippery, caressing. "We should... you'll get wet."

 Lois grinned, then grinned wider when the double-entendre dawned on Clark and he blushed from forehead to navel. The steam curled his hair wildly, making him look like a debauched Cupid. The Roman god not the Hallmark baby. Although with that blush...

 "Are you okay with this, Clark?" Lois asked. "If I'm reading this wrong or if you're uncomfortable--"

 "I never want you to stop," Clark said all in a rush. "I just... I want to... I need..." He swallowed and licked his lips. "When we do this-- and I want to, because I really like you, Lois, and I really want to... to be... to be intimate with you-- I don't want our first time together to be a quickie at a hotel in the middle of work. I want to take you out to dinner. A proper dinner in a nice restaurant. Then we can have a walk or a flight--take your pick-- so we can talk or just be together because everything seems brighter when I'm with you. I want it in your bed or mine so when I wake up in the morning, I can just hold you before I make us breakfast. I want to spend forever making love to you, Lois."

 "That's--" This time, she had to swallow. "That's a pretty extensive list considering we've only known each over for two weeks altogether."

 The hopeful light in Clark's eyes faded and he started to pull away, his chin dipping down again to hide his face. Lois kicked herself. Then she kicked her shoes off and slid into the tub. His arms went around her reflexively. Water soaked her clothes and sloshed onto the floor. She curved her arms behind his back and rested her head under his chin.

 "It's a good list," she said.


	4. Chapter 4

_Then_

 Lois racked up the last of the silverware into the appropriate drawer. "I should head back to Potter's."

 "The way's pretty tricky at night. Would you like me to go with you?" asked Clark.

 On the one hand, Lois had an excellent sense of direction; an advantage with less-than-stellar GPS' installed in rental cars. On the other hand, any reason to get Clark Kent. Talking. Anything to get Clark Kent talking. She told herself she wanted to converse with him for her story (because the story  _would_ be told, just not right now). Going on a moonlit drive in the corn had absolutely nothing to do with the pleasure of his company. The last time Lois lied to herself this badly, she'd stolen an Abrams tank in revenge for bring grounded from prom.

 "Thanks, I'd appreciate that."

 Clark took all of five minutes to corral the chickens into their coops. He slapped at his jeans with an apologetic crook of his eyebrows as she unlocked the car doors.

 "The dust," he said.

 Lois shrugged his concern away. "I've had sand in unmentionable places. A little dust in the car won't drive me nuts. How're you going to get back home?"

 He gave her a little shrug. Every cell in Lois' body told her to push but she told those cells to shut up. Pushing would only make him skittish. Lois had gone on enough "bonding" hunting trips with her dad to know when patience would bag her the bigger prize.

 The roads in and out of the Kent farm were more dirt than asphalt. More of that Kansas dust billowed out behind the car. It only took Lois twenty minutes to get from the centre of Smallville to the farm but this time, she kept a light foot on the gas. Clark interrupted the silence with the occasional, "Take that left" or "Turn right after the fence."

 As Smallville's three whole traffic lights blinked in the distance, Clark finally spoke an entire sentence. "I'm glad you're all right."

 "You helped a little with that," said Lois.

 "I meant afterward. Out in the ice. I knew they'd come to investigate but I wasn't sure how long it would take. I'm glad they found you in time." He picked at the lint on his shirt. "I should've dropped you off at the station."

 "You helped me even if it meant I saw your face and your abilities. If you were really that worried about keeping your--" Lois flapped a hand as she searched for the appropriate word-- "abilities a secret, you would've left me in that space cave."

 Clark's eyes widened. "I couldn't do that."

 "You turned a semi into a post-modern sculpture."

 "He was being disrespectful to Chrissie."

 "Most guys would've just punched it out."

 "I'm not most guys."

 "So that's what I think," said Lois.

 Clark blinked, his brow furrowing.

 "You trusted your dad to protect you just like I trusted you back in the Arctic to save me. That makes three of us-- your parents and me-- that know the truth about you and we've pretty much done the opposite of rejection. I stalked you around the world, for fuck's sake."

 He didn't reply.

 "Besides, I'd rather have a mild case of hypothermia than bleed out in a space cave."

 One traffic light and two four-way stops later, Lois pulled into Nell Potter's driveway. She hadn't gotten a lot out of him. She had no idea how to break this to Perry. The Supreme Court was about to rule on the Voting Registration Act. She knew exactly which way those bastards were going to vote and she already had notes for a future editorial so maybe if she pulled those notes together with a couple key interviews from certain states, she could create enough of an upset to make the SCOTUS think twice.

 She stepped out of the car the same time Clark did. "Are you gonna wait for me to go inside before you find your mysterious way back home?"

 He only smiled at her.

 Lois sighed, pretending frustration. To her surprise, she really  _was_ pretending. She actually didn't mind not knowing. For now. She tried to tell herself it was only because she knew she could get a better interview out of him in the future.

 Clark was leaning against the car as she came around the other side to get to Nell Potter's front door. He always seemed to stand like that outside of his parents' farm; his shoulders curved down, trying to make himself smaller and inconspicuous. She wondered if it was conscious.

 "Thank you for coming to dinner," he said.

 "Thanks for letting me crash your dinner," Lois replied. "And for trusting me."

 He hid the fact that his smile got bigger by kicking at the sidewalk. Adorable. Really. He had to be younger than what his (fake) birth certificate indicated, which made her ogling that much worse because she hadn't seen thirty in a handful of years.

 Lois held her hand out to end the uncomfortable conversation in her head. "Well. Good night."

 His handshake was firm, his palms dry and exuding heat. "Good night, Lois. Have a safe trip home."

 "You too." She made it halfway to the porch before turning around to see him go. She wasn't entirely surprised to find the sidewalk empty. Her phone buzzed, giving her a list of leads to follow in Smallville before she returned to work on Thursday. She deleted it. 

* * *

_Now_

 Clark awoke with the world's usual cacophony hammering into his bones. He took a breath and imagined an island in the middle of the ocean. Lois curled around his body, her sigh warming the hollow of his throat, her pulse beating against his chest, oranges and rosewood in her hair.

 The island swam to him.

  _ **~fin~**_


End file.
